How To Let Go Of The Past

Much is written about why you should let go of the past. How can we be present and really looking towards our future when we constantly find ourselves churning over in our mind the “bad things” from our past? It should be obvious why one would need to let the past go. We know why this is important. However, it’s more important to know how to do it.

Most of us will eventually come to grips with why we should do let go of our past but we often get stuck on actually taking steps to make it happen.

9 Ways To (Start To) Let Go Of The Past

The ideas listed here are a menu that you can pick and choose from. You do not need to limit yourself to only one of the ideas. Your success in letting go of your past will probably come from using more than just one of them so don’t hold yourself back. Start with one but figure out if any of the others can also help you on your way.

Give Yourself Permission To Let Go Of The Past

Only you know what is in your head and therefore only you can allow yourself to start letting go of your past. Only you have the power to clear out the shit in your head. This is an important step. Your brain can latch onto something and is waiting for you to release the responsibility. By committing to this release, your brain can focus on other productive areas. That release comes in the form of telling yourself to let go.

One way to free up your mind is to write down your thoughts. Getting the “bad thoughts” out of your head and on to paper or a document helps to clear them out of your mind.

As a simple suggestion write apology letters to the people that you may have wronged and even to yourself. The letters do not need to be actually sent to the recipients but writing them out goes a long way to clear your mind of the thoughts associated with your past. See below regarding using a journal for this.

Learn From Your Past Experiences

There are learning nuggets contained within your past. Anything you have done or tried before is up for grabs in the University of Your Past, or as many people like to call it, The School Of Hard Knocks.

It’s up to you to recognize what those lessons are and how to use them effectively. Often the best way to use them is to determine why they happened and how to avoid them in the future.

Consider Learning Meditation

When you are relaxed, you will have an easier time of purging your past. One of the best forms of relaxation is meditation. It takes several sessions to get your body and mind in tune with the techniques. Don’t expect fast solutions with this. The key is to keep doing it until you feel the effects.

Meditation also has a many overall benefits for your physical and mental health, so regardless of what your reason for starting is, meditation can be a very worthwhile pursuit.

Don’t Hide From Your Past

People try to pretend certain aspects of their past did not happen, especially the more embarrassing moments. However, this may cause them to come back to you with a vengeance since they are bottling up within you. Acknowledge everything about your past but commit to pushing forward.

Keep A Journal Of Your Experiences

Be as detailed as possible so you can refer to the journal when faced with similar circumstances in the future. Don’t treat your journal as a bible, however. Just use the journal as a guideline.

Don’t Expect All Changes To Occur Immediately

Your past habits may be difficult to break. Therefore, don’t try to change everything in one shot. Give it time. It took a long time to develop those bad habits. It can take longer to get rid of them.

If you are too hard on yourself about your past, stop. It’s okay to acknowledge that you made some mistakes but don’t get overly critical of them.

Concentrate On Good Aspects Of Your Past

Sometimes, you may focus on your mistakes and mask the fact that you had some wonderful experiences in the past as well. These are equally important.

Think about even the smallest accomplishments in your life. You did well on a test or a paper in school. You make your bed everyday. Chances are there is something in your life that you are doing “right”. Don’t overlook the little things as they are place to start building from.

Avoid The Victim Mentality

For too many of us our past may be loaded with awful, horrific things that happened to us. Things happened that were done to us, or that we saw happen to other people but in either case, were really out of our control to do anything about the. No doubt, you were the victim in these types of situations. If you can, try to find the way to forgive the perpetrators of those events. No, it is not going to be easy but forgiving them can be a big step to letting go of your past.

More importantly, forgive yourself. Whatever may have happened and whenever it may have happened, today, you are probably not at all the same person that experienced those horrible events in the past. In a way, you can consider it as though that person was someone else entirely different than you. That person was a victim, yes.

Today, you are smarter, stronger, and hopefully better equipped to mentally deal with such types of events. That old you was a victim to whatever may have happened in the past. However, continuing to live life as victim today, will not be beneficial for you. Forgive yourself and do your very best to move on.

Seek The Help Of Others – Personal And/Or Professional

Speak with family members or friends that you can trust. Get professional counseling. Sharing what’s bottled up in your brain with other people help you to clear it out. Professional advisors can offer steps to take for you to move past things that have been affecting you over the course of your life.

Depending on how drastic the events of your past may have been, professional help may be the best and only method to help you to get over your past. If you need professional help, seek it out.

Without ever a second thought, we use doctors, lawyers and accountants when we need them, so there is absolutely no shame and no reason not to get professional help from mental health practitioners anytime that you might need it.

Conclusion

We all have skeletons in our closet. Make the time to clear them out and organize that closet. Unwelcome thoughts of embarrassment or regret take up space in our brains that can be used for good and motivating thoughts. We cannot ever change the past so right now is the time to let it go.

Review, learn, figure out how not to make the same mistakes again and move on. Life is too short to dwell in the past. Your productive present life and future life are waiting for you.